


Touching the Sky

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: A best friend takes Evie up close to the one thing in Auradon that is just beyond her reach





	Touching the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous request on tumblr

A lot of things could happen in the span of six months. Winter could turn to spring. Bonds could cement, or likewise, crumble. Four lost kids could find home in a magical kingdom and family in one another. One especially lost girl could find the power of a dragon hidden within her.  
  
Mal had watched her home and family threatened as she stood soaking in her best friend’s dress, and the change was upon her, naturally and instinctually. Like a baby learns to crawl, Mal had learned to fly. And it was no surprise that Evie was the first one there when Mal landed on claws that turned back into heels and painted fingernails. Evie with her angel face full of shock, astonishment, but most of all—pride.  
  
“…So, I did not know that I could do that,” Mal sheepishly said.  
  
“Tell me about it, that makes two of us,” all Evie could do was smile.  
  
Her best friend was a dragon. There weren’t many who could say that.  
  
But in true Auradon spirit, the threat had been vanquished, and the villain driven back. There was little need or use for the dragon along the sprawling, clean-cut lawns of Auradon Prep.  
  
Except for when Evie wanted to touch the sky.  
  
Six months should’ve been enough time for Evie to grow accustomed to it, to how it wasn’t simply a thick blanket of gray draped suffocatingly over her like it was on The Isle. Sometimes it was a clear, endless light blue. Sometimes it rolled with waves of white. Sometimes the white speckled it in tiny tufts, or even streaks, like Mal herself had taken a paintbrush to them and made her mark. The sky had many different faces that Evie had never known on The Isle, but after her time in Auradon, she should’ve been used to all of them, and should’ve walked beneath the sky with uninterested eyes trained firmly ahead of her, the way everyone else in the kingdom seemed to walk. She didn’t.  
  
As a picture of regality and poise, the only times Evie was ever caught losing her grace was when an intense focus on the sky had her stumbling into a dip in the grass, or nearly colliding with a tree before Mal or one of the boys fervidly called out her name or tugged her out of the way with a silent yank. Too many times had Mal come into the dorm room to find that Evie had relocated the smaller desk to the window, and although a valiant effort was made to attempt her homework, she couldn’t get very far with her gaze lost outside the glass and up among the clouds. Sometimes minutes would pass before Evie ever knew she had company, and Mal would let them.  
  
She liked to see the peace on Evie’s face. Back on The Isle, under the thumb of her mother, Evie was to always be composed, dignified. Always to be carrying herself with utmost perfection—a full-time occupation that had no room for the word “peace” to linger. If Mal had the means and opportunity to just see Evie breathe, she would seize them.  
  
The first time it happened, Evie had been wiling away a late sunny Saturday afternoon on the west lawn with her sketchbook, a good number of the designs drawn in front of her not-so-coincidentally colored with sky blue. She paid no attention to the sudden gasps, shouts, and riled-up noises of the students crossing the lawn behind her, she simply chalked it up to one of the Tourney members strolling by, flashing finger guns and too-white teeth.  
  
Only when the ground quaked beneath her and a downdraft of air whipped her hair all in her face did she make the same sudden gasp, and as she turned her head with strands of blue streaking her vision, she found herself face to face with slitted emerald eyes and a row of razor-sharp teeth contorted into what she swore was a smug smirk.  
  
_“Mal??”_  
  
The growling rumble in the dragon’s throat would have come off as threatening to anyone else. To Evie, she somehow knew—it was a hello.  
  
“Mal, what are you doing??”  
  
Evie hadn’t seen that face since Cotillion, and frankly, never thought she would again. But still she smiled, as if she were seeing an old friend again instead of a friend she’d literally seen just a few hours ago.  
  
Mal gave a single jerk of a horned head, a silent but clear “hop on”. And little would make Evie ever abandon a sketchbook in the middle of the grass, but with a dragon beckoning her into the unknown, the moment found her caring little about work.   
  
Mal waited patiently as Evie settled in on her back and tried to find a comfortable hold. It wasn’t that Evie necessarily harbored an extreme fear of heights, but, well, it  _was_  flying, after all. A brand new experience and her without anything akin to a seatbelt had her arms wrapped a little too tightly around Mal’s neck, but Mal did nothing about it.   
  
“…Okay. Ready,” Evie breathed.  
  
Only then did Mal begin to gently beat those powerful wings of hers, practically twice her length and lifting her off the ground with ease. Evie held tighter as she watched the earth fall away beneath them, or watched her awestruck classmates getting smaller and smaller with every wingbeat. And then they were flying, smoothly and seamlessly. She’d only taken to the skies twice in her life, and still Mal was a pro. Even as they rose higher and higher, Evie felt her hold on her best friend loosen, feeling sure and at ease in Mal’s movements.  
  
Not to mention that Mal would most assuredly catch her if she happened to fall.  
  
The wind billowing through her hair, it was… _indescribable._  The sheer freedom of being off the ground, the endless expanse in every direction; Evie couldn’t understand why Mal hadn’t done this more often. They climbed higher and higher, until the clouds were no longer something fantastical and unobtainable, but just within reach. Evie couldn’t believe it was happening, but she stretched out a hand nonetheless, eyes wide and heart racing—and literally touched the sky.   
  
Her hand was cold and wet as it trailed through a looming cloud, but the rest of her was unbelievably warm. When Evie laughed, overjoyed, Mal’s frills perked like her human ears would, hanging on to the sound.  
  
“This is amazing!!” Evie yelled over the rushing wind, a smile stretching her cheeks so far they almost ached. “Mal!!”  
  
Mal roared her agreement, the sound shaking the sky. Soon the clouds were underneath them, Evie looked down at them like they were banks of snow she hadn’t yet seen in Auradon. Mal wanted to show off, to bring out Evie’s laughter again with rolls, flips, and dives, but it was only Evie’s first time flying, Mal made herself take it easy with her on board. She could show off the next time, when Evie was more confidently comfortable. And with her best friend’s uncontrollable giggles filling the air, Mal was positive there  _would_ be a next time.  
  
She had no idea where she was flying, but she didn’t need to, simply dipping back down beneath the clouds to take a look at the world underneath them. Auradon Prep and the rest of civilization was long gone, nothing but forests and hills sprawling below now. And even here, it was still the same. Here was Evie with a brand new view of the world she’d known, getting the rare, rare chance to look down at it like an angel, to see what the birds and the fairies and the dragons saw, and still she was fascinated with nothing but the sky.  
  
Mal flew until the land was forest and gentle hills no more, but dipping steeply and rising sharply with more mountainous terrain, rolling like ocean waves churned just as a storm began to brew. The mountains were softly rounded and green, overgrown with trees, nothing like the jagged and jutting peaks of their island home, menacing bare rock that pierced the sky like serrated teeth.  
  
Evie’s breath completely escaped her when she saw that the sun was beginning to sink ahead of them, that shadows of pink and red were beginning to fall on the purple of Mal’s scales. And then Mal took them low, flying through the valley, level with the mountain faces. Evie felt heat welling behind her eyes, tears stinging, and none of it from the wind. It was  _beautiful._  Evie had used that word many times since coming to Auradon, but not once had she felt it so strongly as she did now. It was a kind of beauty that made her chest ache, her heart squeeze, her very breath difficult to get out.  
  
They only descended lower into the valley, and now Evie just had to take her eyes off the sky. Here around her was the kind of scenery she’d only seen in her tattered books back on The Isle, and even then only through half-torn pages and faded pictures. There were so many shades of green in the trees and among the grass that not even Mal’s most expensive pencil set had a color for every one of them. If Evie hadn’t already grown accustomed to fairies and dragons, she would certainly be searching for them here, in this magical valley where she was sure she might see a unicorn darting by if she only looked hard enough. Heavier purples and burnt oranges were creeping over the mountains, reminding Evie to look up in time to see the sun getting closer and closer to hiding shyly behind a towering peak.  
  
Neither Evie nor Mal wanted their flight to end, but Mal just glided lower and lower until she and her best friend finally touched down in a flowery field nestled just at the top of a slope. The setting sun was straight ahead of them in the distance, and mountains hugged them comfortably on both sides. A front row seat.  
  
Evie almost forgot how to move, until a gentle grunt from Mal snapped her into reality and she climbed down from her back. Just as she got her footing on solid ground again, she stepped back and watched as the massive dragon disappeared in a giant plume of purple, churning around and around like the mysterious inside of a crystal ball. When the smoke cleared, the enormous dragon was gone, and Mal’s five foot two inches had taken its place. Just as  _she_ got her footing on solid ground again she promptly lost it, falling into the tall grass and swaying flowers as Evie’s ecstatic hug tackled her off her feet.  
  
“Thank you…” Evie whispered, holding Mal tight.  
  
Mal was a fire-breathing dragon just seconds ago, but not even then had she felt so warm. She wasn’t sure what to say.  _“You’re welcome”_?  _“Anything for you”_? Or perhaps the  _“Never let me go”_  she heard echoing in the deepest, darkest reaches of her brain.  
  
“…You haven’t even seen the best part yet,” was what she settled on with a shy smile.  
  
So Evie rolled off of her, and they both sat up, side by side underneath the setting sun. It was getting darker by the second, the sky flooding with a crisp red, a deep purple, a rosy pink, and a fiery orange. Evie felt like she was holding her breath as she saw the sun sinking, guiding her eyes as close as she could without looking directly at it. And when it finally fell below a distant mountain peak, when Evie could see the rays of light pinwheeling in all directions across the painted canvas of sky,  _then_  her breath caught, and  _then_ the heat brewed behind her enchanted gaze once more.  
  
Mal watched the sunset with her, but not in the sky. With a turned head, and a fiercely beating heart, she watched it in Evie’s eyes, the earth brown reflecting but not at all dulling the show of colors above them. Mal hadn’t even seen the best part yet either.  _This_  was the best part, Evie’s glittering eyes and parted lips, breathing awestruck sighs and blinking back tears.  
  
Mal wanted to hold her hand.  
  
She didn’t know why. She held Evie’s hand all the time, it wasn’t an odd occurrence, the only thing odd here was how Mal hesitated, nervous and unsure, hand hovering gingerly like she hovered on long, powerful wings. Evie was so fixated, Mal didn’t want to disturb her. Didn’t want her touch to break Evie out of her own personal bubble and ruin a single second of her experience. But of all the times she’d ever laced her fingers through Evie’s, now seemed like the most perfect time of all.  
  
“…Evie?”   
  
Mal cursed herself the second the two soft syllables escaped into the air. If she worried about her mere touch breaking Evie’s spell, what made her think her voice wouldn’t do the same thing? She regretted it the instant Evie tore her eyes away from the sunset to look at her.  
  
And lost her breath herself as she saw Evie bathed in that dwindling light, blue hair and perfect skin splashed with the reds, pinks, oranges.  
  
And purples.  
  
Mal was no stranger to telling Evie “I love you”. She wouldn’t have believed it, but six months was enough time for her to get used to having the heaviest three words of any language pass through her lips. But easily, casually. Things along the lines of  _“Evie, I love you, but if you take the last piece of pie one more time…”_  
  
The “I love you” swelling suddenly in Mal’s chest felt much, much more foreign than any of the others. And maybe she was a big bad dragon, teeth like knives and fire blazing bright, but here, with Evie, she was simply Mal. Mal felt fear and vulnerability more than any mighty dragon could.  
  
And Evie wouldn’t say it—even though something rooted squarely inside of her badly wanted her to—but she loved Mal for it. Mal was a dragon, but Evie’s best friend was human. A human with all the heart and softness needed to watch her gaze at the sky day in and day out and think  _“I’ll take her there someday.”_  
  
Mal was the one who whispered Evie’s name, and Evie had indeed looked back at her, but neither girl said anything more. Mal just shook her head with reddened cheeks, an Evie responded with an easy smile before turning back to her sunset. Her sunset was that wild bevy of colors stretching across the valley. Mal’s sunset was simply blue. As the sun fell and fell, so did the girls.  
  
Into the grass, and for each other.  
  
They were comfortably on their backs by the time the sky showed an entirely different face, one onyx black and speckled with pinpoints of light, all different sizes. With the appearance of the shining crescent moon came the advent of Mal’s courage, and she finally braved reaching her hand across the flowers to twine her fingers with Evie’s. It was simple, and innocent. Something they’d done dozens of times. Something that never made Mal loll her head to the side to gaze at Evie under the moonlight and silently think  _“What happens if I tell you I love you?”_  the way she was thinking now.  
  
“…What do you think those stars look like right there?” Evie raised her free hand and pointed.  
  
Mal followed Evie’s finger into the sky, finding the particular cluster of light. She let her mind relax, her imagination run free, connecting the dots with her eyes and letting the picture take shape in her head.  
  
“A crown,” she answered, seeing it clear as day within the night. “What do you think they look like?”  
  
Evie did the same, studying, allowing her creativity to flow.  
  
“A dragon,” she told Mal, watching wings filled with starlight stretch out in the sky.  
  
And Mal really did wonder what would happen if she told Evie she loved her. The same way Evie wondered if the silence around them was just too heavy to be broken with an “…I love you, Mal.” But they both supposed it was alright, for now. Maybe in another six months they’d be back in this exact same spot, not laying side by side, but laying in each other’s arms. Not just quietly pondering over love, but showing it to one another bravely and proudly. A lot could happen in six months, after all. A girl’s best friend could turn into a dragon. Evie didn’t see why a girl’s best friend couldn’t also turn into a true love.  
  
Mal suddenly remembered class back across the countryside at Auradon Prep, where she’d learned that when the night was clear, the horizon was dark, and the eye looked just hard enough, the dazzling and otherworldly bands of the galaxy could be seen stretching across the darkness. Evie would love to see that. With all her heart. And Mal knew it, too.  
  
Today, she’d taken Evie upon her wings and let her touch the sky.  
  
Someday, maybe soon, maybe in the far future, but absolutely someday indeed, she’d take Evie to touch the stars. Evie would soar on purple wings until she met the wings of starlight she’d seen up in that constellation. She’d kiss that starry dragon on its twinkling nose, and Mal would place the celestial crown that her own eyes saw in the night sky upon Evie’s head. Evie and Mal had spent their entire lives under a barrier, but no more. Not with the two of them hand in hand, side by side, heart to heart.  
  
The sky was the limit.


End file.
